The Agony of XTC

England's pop eccentrics make an art of survival

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October 1992By Roger Friedman

Swindon's finest.XTC's
Dave Gregory (left) and Andy Partridge.

Some careers are planned, others are accidents. XTC's has been a comedy of
errors. Nothing's worked out quite the way it was supposed to. None of them
live in mansions or drive fancy cars. They're not as young and sexy as Color Me
Badd. Actually, they're not even as young and sexy as the Dave Clark Five. When
discussing their visual appeal, plumpish group leader Andy Partridge has
referred to himself as a "potato thing". And worst of all, XTC are cursed by
consistently good reviews. "We could build ourselves a complete palace out of
critical acclaim", he says, "but we couldn't put together a little hovel out of
sales".

XTC, under the stewardship of Partridge and his partner Colin Moulding, have
been producing much-admired, well-crafted pop since 1977 yet still labor in a
bizarre, financially perilous obscurity. Things have been so bad in the not-so
distant past that Moulding and guitarist Dave Gregory have resorted to working
at a local car rental drop-off between royalty checks. The two seem mildly
embarrassed about the experience; others in the XTC camp have grown a bit
uncertain of the band's solvency. For their latest album, Nonsuch,
Partridge resorted to a clever subterfuge to get session drummer Dave Mattacks
to work with the band.

"He said he had always wanted to play on a Joni Mitchell record. So I put on
a long wig and some fake teeth and rang him up one night. He saw through my
disguise immediately. But he still consented to drum on our album".

Nonsuch is an eclectic, brilliant, appropriately pompous song cycle
that tackles the Gulf War, book burning, and P.T. Barnum. "Wrapped in Grey" is
a lush homage to the Beach Boys, while "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" is
bouncy, fairy-tale pop with a grotesque moral: Champions of the people usually
get crucified. Taken in one sitting, it's a little much. But ingested one at a
time, most of the songs - like the overly catchy single "Dear Madam Barnum" -
are remarkably ornate, occasionally gothic, and always rich with literary
references. "I'm in the middle of reading six books", Partridge says, including
A History of the art of War in the Sixteenth Century by Charles W. Oman
and one of J.R. Hale's Renaissance tomes. Despite such archaic inspirations,
Nonsuch sneaked into the Hot 100 immediately, the highest chart debut
for any XTC album yet.

Nonetheless, Partridge is skeptical about his chances at superstardom and
doesn't plan to quit his day job-as a producer. "I make more money producing
other people, like Lilac Time or the Mission U.K.", he says, though he calls
the latter gig a "dreadful mistake. I did it for mercenary reasons. I have two
children".

But Partridge is also partly responsible for the group's mounting financial
trouble. In 1982, he stopped performing live with XTC, thereby joining an
exclusive club whose members include Carly Simon, Donald Fagen, and Brian
Wilson. "We were a fast, aggressive touring machine with white-hot metal
spewing out", Partridge says of the band then. "But you get kind of bored with
that after five years. And on top of all that, I was getting more and more
frightened of seeing nobody all day and then 10,000 people at one go". The
group's big British hit at that time was called "Senses Working Overtime" - a
title that Partridge evidently took to heart. He had a breakdown onstage and
that was that.

Years before, Partridge had learned to play the guitar when he realized it
was "a girl magnet". At first, he and Moulding called their group the Helium
Kidz. In 1975, the Helium Kidz metamorphosed into XTC, he says, "because I
thought that explained our music more aptly meaning happy, instantaneous
wonderfulness, short, sharp, shocking, a kind of shorthand route to wonder".
With their first album, White Music, the group capitulated to what was
then the punk sound in London.

Partridge admits, "I'm really embarrassed by that early material. It's like
naked baby photos. They weren't songs, they were just slabs of energy with
words that made good energy pictures in your head. Phrases like 'radios in
motion' or 'battery brides' - they were all kind of built around this electric
wordplay stuff".

White Music, originally released only in the U.K., sold an anemic
30,000 copies or so, according to Partridge. The group was already losing
money. But the situation worsened, even as XTC released new-wave smashups like
"Making Plans for Nigel" and classic squiggly pop albums such as Drums and
Wires and English Settlement. They were forced to record 1986's
Skylarking their eighth album in less than a decade, in the middle of
epic, expensive, and protracted legal battles with their former manager. It was
a touchy time.

"Then the 'Dear God' thing happened", says Moulding. That song, left off the
original release of Skylarking, later became the B-side of a single
called "Grass". Then, in a typical XTC happenstance, an American DJ, curious
about the title, started playing "Dear God" - not realizing it had been removed
from the LP. It was quickly added to subsequent pressings of the record and
became a minor hit. After a career of misadventures and happy accidents,
Skylarking and the follow-up, 1989's Oranges & Lemons, became
the band's most successful records.

"Nonsuch comes out, and we all think it's our last album", muses
Partridge. "You have to think, 'O.K., when I get hit by a bus tomorrow this
album will be held up as some great tombstone'. Then something bizarre happens
like someone flips over a B-side and that keeps us going for another year or
two".

Andy Partridge says that he would have made a disco album in 1977 if he
wanted to be famous. But, he shrugs, "I'm an ideas man who's trapped with a
guitar around my neck".